The article considers the history of Gwerddon, a multi-disciplinary research e-journal launched in April 2007, which has to date (January 2019) published more than one hundred original articles. Its origins lie in the growth of Welsh-language teaching in Welsh universities in the 1970s and 1980s, the campaign to establish a Welsh-language federal college at a time when the federal University of Wales was in crisis, and the urgent need for Welsh-language scholarship to be equally represented in the research assessment exercises of the RAE/REF. The study considers the journal’s impact factors and its role in the development of a Welsh presence on the burgeoning web of the early twenty-first century, and argues that its continuation rests both on Welsh Government educational policy in general, and the financial resilience of the Higher Education sector at a time of severe challenges.
Gwerddon: Greening a desert? Some comments on the history of a Welsh-language e-periodical
Health and salvation: medicine, the body and the moral order in colonial Bengal 1840-1935
Drawing on a rich seam of archival material on Welsh missionary activity in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Bengal, the article addresses ways in which care of the sick became a central, if problematic, part of Christian Mission. While the building of dispensaries, clinics and hospitals provided both a platform and a social visibility to the evangelisation process, they also exposed deeper tensions around the politics of gender and the implantation of Western medical practices in a colonised society.
‘Beth yw’r ots gennyf i am Gymru?’: The out-migration and aspirations of young people from the Welsh heartland...
This article considers the out-migration of young people from the Welsh-speaking heartlands in terms of their aspirations and hopes for the future. The original doctoral research (2014), is based on Hywel Jones’ (2010) work, which argues that young people born outside of Wales are four times more likely to migrate from Wales than young people born here. The research attempts to establish the main factors that affect rates of out-migration among young people born outside of Wales and those born into non-native families. The article concludes that the main drivers of rates of out-migration among this group are factors such as sense of belonging and the extent of community integration, rather than solely economic factors. In particular, it examines how culture, nationality, and considerations pertaining to the Welsh language have an impact on this trend, which has important implications in terms of the linguistic retention of the ‘traditional’ Welsh speaking areas.
Minority nationalist parties and their adaption to devolution: A comparative study of Plaid Cymru and the Bloq...
In many places, devolution has created new regional arenas within which minority nationalist parties have been highly successful in mobilising support for their national projects. However, scholars have paid scant attention to how minority nationalist parties have adapted as they have become major players in regional politics. This article examines such process of adaptation in the cases of two minority nationalist parties: Plaid Cymru in Wales and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego in Galicia. It is argued that the experiences of these parties in adapting to passing the thresholds of representation, relevance and government in their respective regions are far from unique. Rather, they reflect the challenges that any political party faces when it makes the transition from protest to power.
Wales, nationality and national theatre: Following suit or breaking new ground?
This article is a study of the relationship between nationality and national theatre in Wales from the nineteenth century up to the present day. Welsh nationality is considered in the context of contemporary discussion by the pioneering critics Umut Özkirimli and Hans Kohn on concepts of the nation. The article aims to look into the crucial questions which arise from the historical and current relationships between national theatre, as an arts exercise, and a political expression of national identity in Wales. The significance of national theatre as a tool for expressing national identity is assessed and it is questioned whether the new national theatres of the twenty first century refer back to traditional concepts of the nation and nationality or do they instead exercise a new kind of modern nationality which is defined as ‘an interaction of cultural coalescence and specific political intervention’?
Ancient gentry and the modern nation: Gwaed yr Uchelwyr read in the light of anglophone Welsh fiction of the C...
The core argument of the essay is that it would be worth setting Saunders Lewis’ important early play, Gwaed yr Uchelwyr, in the context of several anglophone Welsh novels published at the turn of the nineteenth century that sought to assess the relevance of the culture of the indigenous gentry of Wales to the new nation celebrated by the Cymru Fydd movement. It is argued that familiarity with these texts could assist us to grasp the subtlety and rich ambivalence of the play’s ideological stance.
(Performing citizenship: Sisters, a joint production between National Theatre Wales and Junoon Theatre Mumbai)
This article seeks to interrogate the ways in which the citizens of Wales use the theatrical resources at their disposal to investigate and articulate their national identities and experiences. The discussion will take a recent co-production, entitled Sisters, between National Theatre Wales and Junoon Theatre Mumbai as its starting point. Sisters stimulates discussion of new ways of creating and participating in theatre that respond creatively to the challenges of a twenty-first century global, digital and post-consumerist society. In discussion, this article will use Johannes Birringer’s uncompromising vision of theatre as a transformative activity that focuses on patterns of collaboration between unfamiliar and unrooted individuals, as a measuring yard for the success and significance of Sisters. I will also argue that the social conditions that inspired Birringer’s vision also give fresh importance to Amelia Jones’s argument about the value of responding to a production or performance by means of secondary evidence, or ‘detritus’, as described by Mathew Reason.
The psychological foundations of reading fluency: a review
Forty years of research into reading has elucidated many of the psychological processes underpinning the reading process, but until recently, the cognitive underpinnings of fluency have been relatively unknown. In this review, a description is provided of reading fluency as a cognitive and neurobiological phenomenon, including the research that has gone into understanding this process. My own and my colleagues’ work has focused heavily on this area, and I outline our main findings to date. I end by outlining the implications of this work for our understanding of reading fluency in normally developed and dyslexic adults.
Archwilio Cymru'r Oesoedd Canol: Testunau o Gyfraith Hywel
Mae'r ddogfen hon gan Sara Elin Roberts a Christine James yn cynnig cyflwyniad cyffredinol i Gyfreithiau Hywel Dda, sef cyfreithiau brodorol Cymru yn yr Oesoedd Canol, trwy roi 'blas' i'r darllenydd ar yr amrywiaeth eang o feysydd gwahanol sy'n cael eu trafod yn y llawysgrifau gwreiddiol - meysydd mor amrywiol â chyfraith Gwragedd a Gwerth Offer, Coed a Chathod, rheolau ynghylch Tir, a Thrais, a Theulu'r Brenin... I gynorthwyo'r darllenydd amhrofiadol, ac er mwyn annog astudiaethau yn y maes, gosodwyd y detholion o'r testunau Cymraeg Canol gwreiddiol ochr-yn-ochr â 'chyfieithiadau' ohonynt mewn Cymraeg Diweddar. Mae rhagymadrodd byr i bob pwnc yn ei dro, a llyfryddiaeth ddethol ar ddiwedd pob uned ar gyfer darllen pellach. Dyma gyfrol a fydd o ddiddordeb a defnydd i bawb sy'n ymddiddori yn hanes y Gyfraith, hanes Cymru neu lenyddiaeth Gymraeg yn yr Oesoedd Canol. Ceir llawer mwy o wybodaeth am Gyfraith Hywel Dda ar wefan Cyfraith Hywel:
“Daring to live": Work-life balance in the letters of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert, Kate Roberts and Saund...
This article compares the renowned letters of Kate Roberts and Saunders Lewis with the correspondence of two leading nineteenth-century French authors, Gustave Flaubert and George Sand, considering the value and purpose of letters between authors. In addition to widening our understanding of Roberts and Lewis’s works, the article also places the Sand-Flaubert correspondence in a new context, and considers the development of authorial correspondence over the decades. It draws original conclusions by revealing that literary letters continue to play a key role for writers in the twentieth century: offering encouragement and advice, a means of escape from current circumstances, and an important tool in the struggle against the emptiness of modern society.
‘Memory Contests’, narrative and history in Wehlau’s Heimatmuseum: Negotiating the complicated history and mem...
Between 1945 and 1948, up to twelve million Germans who lived in Eastern Europe were expelled following changes to the country’s borders. Many of these Germans resettled in the Federal Republic of Germany, where they came to be known as ‘expellees’. To commemorate their lost homeland, the expellees opened small museums dedicated to the areas of expulsion. This article explores the ways in which history and memory are portrayed in the museum representing the former East Prussian town of Wehlau. By investigating themes such as the representation of the homeland, the Second World War and the integration of the expellees into West Germany, this article will highlight the similarities, differences and tensions in the expellee and wider German memory culture.
‘What if this is Armageddon?’: Religion and the Welsh Press in the First World War
This paper analyses the Welsh periodical press during the First World War, with an emphasis on the way an important aspect of the Welsh war culture was constructed. As an integral part of civil society, the press represented a powerful platform from where audiences could be influenced, as contributors of prominent social standing presented, interpreted, and framed the war in particular ways and in accordance with personal beliefs and cultural traditions. This paper argues that a powerful religious discourse was constructed by commentators in the Welsh press with regards to the meaning and purpose of the war, with thoughtful consideration given to prophecy, salvation, and the coming of a new age where Christianity would play a central role.